The Phantom Carriage (Swedish: Körkarlen) is a 1921 Swedish romantic horror film, generally considered to be one of the central works in the history of Swedish cinema. Released on New Year's Day, it was directed by and starred Victor Sjöström, alongside Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg and Astrid Holm.[1] It is based on the novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! (Körkarlen; 1912), by Nobel-prize winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf.

The film is notable for its special effects, its advanced (for the time) narrative structure with flashbacks within flashbacks, and for having been a major influence on Ingmar Bergman.[2]


This movie is part of the collection: Silent Films

Audio/Visual: sound
Keywords: horror; romance; sweden;

Creative Commons license: Attribution 3.0

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Reviewer: glown - - June 1, 2012
Subject: The Phantom Carriage
Good movie, but what's the deal with the score for this version? It fits in a few scenes, but overall it's jarring and kind of obnoxious.

Reviewer: alumni72 - - September 8, 2011
Subject: Excellent movie with misleading title
I saw this movie earlier this year on Turner Classic movies - I stayed up until 2am to see it based solely on the title.
At first I was disappointed, since there didn't seem to be any actual phantom carriage - but I persevered, and in the end I was happy that I did.
It's very much a morality play on film, but exceedingly well done; and the special effects - well, I have no idea how they did some of the things they did, especially given that it was released in 1921.
In the end I wasn't scared by it, but I really loved it and would recommend it to anybody who can appreciate quality films.